After a YouTube trailer named “The Innocence of Muslims” sparked a widespread wave of protests in the region earlier this year, various actions by MENA governments were undertaken to strictly regulate online content. Beyond the campaign of arrests against netizens over blasphemy charges, some governments of the region decided to extend the reach of their online censorship to include websites deemed “pornographic.”

Saudi Arabia, which already censors a number of such websites, wants to block domain names such as ‘.sex,’ ‘.gay,’ or ‘.porn’.

In Palestine, as we previously reported, the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, has undertaken measures to prohibit access to porn websites. Fears have grown since that Hamas may extend the porn ban to include political websites.

The region’s officials have made banning websites deemed “pornographic” their new hobby horse. Image by Ronai on Flickr (CC-BY 2.0), adapted by the MENA NR team

The “porno allergy” doesn't seem to be abating. Your Middle East recalls the attempts by Egyptian officials to “stop Internet users’ appetite for sex sites.” In Egypt, such websites are prohibited by law but not blocked. According to Google Trends the country ranked 5th worldwide in 2011 for search requests such as “sex.”

Dr. Salamouny, an Egyptian lawyer, does his best to enforce more coercive regulations: he has filed a lawsuit demanding pornographic websites to be entirely blocked in Egypt. It is not the first time Dr. Salamouny put a lot of effort in the direction of regulating “vulgar adverts, frequently using obscene language and sexually suggestive material.”

On November 7, the Egyptian Public Prosecutor announced porn sites will be blocked. Indeed, a court order was issued in 2009 allowing technical measures to be taken to block online content deemed “pornographic.” Many have raised concerns highlighting that banning any given online content is a route to generalized censorship. The Egyptian Telecommunication Regulatory Authority has, however, issued a much more nuanced statement which jeopardizes the Prosecutor’s move in favour of censorship.

Censorship

In Iran a new online censorship front seems to have been opened. About a month ago, the so-called Filtering Committee, the Islamic Republic’s dedicated army of online censors, opened a protocol that prevents audiovisual material hosted on servers outside Iran from entering the country.

Protests against an anti-Islam video, initially uploaded to YouTube in July 2012, continued in October as 10,000 Muslims demonstrated outside Google headquarters in London asking that the video be removed. A spokesperson for YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, while recognizing sensitivities, said the video “is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube.”

In the wake of the violent protests sparked by an anti-Islam video clip posted on YouTube, Saudi Arabia wants the creation of a new international body to censor the internet. In a submission to the World Telecommunications Policy Forum, a UN body that oversees forthcoming international talks on internet governance, the Kingdom says it wanted “to address ‘freedom of expression’ which clearly disregards public order.”

Netizen Activism

During the 19-month Syrian revolution, internet has proved to be a useful battleground for anti-regime activists. Skype, in particular, is increasingly becoming an “operations center”, that is the “communications backbone” for the rebels who use it to plan, share information internally and publicize their views.

In Egypt, an online collaborative platform, dostoormasr.com [ar] (Egyptian Constitution), was launched. Using a Facebook interface, it hopes “to involve all members of the Egyptian society in drafting a new constitution,” by voting on different articles of it.

Tunisian independent media outlet Nawaat continues to undergo cyberattacks: a few messages on Twitter announced [fr] that Nawaat.org was sufferring a sustained denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on Oct 21. A message on the Blog Boukornine Facebook page [fr] attributes this cyberaggression to “a leak to be published” and defines it as “Ben Ali’s bully boy tactics.”

Fazil Say, a famous Turkish pianist, was arrested for blasphemy after he posted a few messages on Twitter allegedly “insulting religious values.”

Voices Still Threatened

In Oman, on October 24, 11 bloggers appeared before a Court in Muscat, to appeal a one-year jail term they received in August, this year. They were charged of “insulting the Sultan.” All bloggers are out on bail. Some of the accused claimed they were framed after their Facebook accounts were “hacked and misused.”

Amnesty International has called on the Egyptian authorities to release Alber Saber Ayad, a young activist, who participated in the 2011 uprising that overthrew the former Egyptian regime. M. Ayad is accused of “defamation of religion” and risks up to six years in jail, after he allegedly posted videos critical of religions on the internet. His controversial trial resumed on Oct 16 but was postponed for November without a sentence being announced. Beshoy Kamil Kamel, a Coptic-Christian teacher, was meanwhile sentenced to six years in prison for allegedly posting blasphemous material on Facebook.

Human Rights Watch is calling for the immediate release of the Saudi-American citizen Mohammad Salama, detained over tweets criticizing the Qu’ran.

Privacy

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nationals are soon-to-enjoy fast-track immigration clearances by using national ID cards as e-Gate cards at entry and exit points throughout the Gulf. It is still unclear how personal data collected by such system will be handled and by whom.

Cybersecurity

Ahmed Mansoor, 42, an Emirati electrical engineer and activist for citizens’ civil rights in his country, had his computer taken over by a sophisticated, government-grade spyware, capable of recording every keystroke or remotely operating the webcam. This is the latest in a series of similar attacks that have targeted activists across the MENA region.

Earlier in October, Google sent out tens of thousands of messages to Gmail accounts warning that state-sponsored attacks are on the rise targeting its email service users. Google officials say they think threats are particularly coming from the Middle East.

Sovereigns of Cyberspace

The Wikimedia Foundation and the Saudi Telecom Company (STC) have concluded a partnership aiming at offering “Wikipedia free of data charges on mobile devices to STC customers in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait.”

Internet Governance

In an attempt to establish a common platform for all stakeholders to discuss and debate issues of the internet usage, Kuwait Information Technology Society hosted The First Arab Internet Governance Forum from 9-11 October.

National Policy

Fears are growing that the embattled government in Syria may move to shut down the Internet. Observers are concerned that the regime having realized the full potential of using the Internet may cut it to deprive the opposition from a strategic lifeline.

The Tunisian government announced its intention to implement two media reform laws which were passed by the interim government in November 2011: Decree-Law 115 on media freedom, printing and publishing, and Decree-Law 116 on the creation of an Independent Broadcasting Authority. The announcement came late in the day on October 17, after a one-day strike by the vast majority of Tunisian state and privately-owned print, broadcast, and online media.

Iraqi blogger Bahar publishes [ar] a long study about the Cybercrime Law in his country. He wonders whether the law is meant to stifle the opposition rather than prevent online crimes. As we have previously reported, this bill constitutes a serious threat to free speech online.

The Palestinian Authority has also engaged into opening the data: French independent news outlet OWNI publishes [fr] an interview with Dr. Safa Nasser Eldin, the Authority’s Telecommunications Minister.

The Egyptian independent media collective Mosireen has successfully concluded their crowdfunding campaign: the activists collected USD 40,415 out of the USD 40,000 they were aiming at.

Worth Reading

“Turkey’s Press Freedom in Crisis,” an extensive report by the Committee to Protect Journalists

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[…] MENA Netizen Report: Porn EditionGlobal Voices OnlineIn the wake of the violent protests sparked by an anti-Islam video clip posted on YouTube, Saudi Arabia wants the creation of a new international body to censor the internet. In a submission to the World Telecommunications Policy Forum, a UN body that … […]

[…] MENA Netizen Report: Porn Edition Beyond the campaign of arrests against netizens over blasphemy charges, some governments of the region decided to extend the reach of their online censorship to include websites deemed “pornographic.” Saudi Arabia … Protests against an anti-Islam … Read more on Global Voices Online […]

[…] MENA Netizen Report: Porn Edition Ahmed Mansoor, 42, an Emirati electrical engineer and activist for citizens' civil rights in his country, had his computer taken over by a sophisticated, government-grade spyware, capable of recording every keystroke or remotely operating the webcam … Read more on Global Voices Online […]